ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the present manifestations of peaceful historical change and their implications for the trans-Atlantic relationship. It describes some recommendations for the constructive management of peaceful change in regard to the security issue in a still-divided, but gradually changing, Europe. In contrast, communist leaders claim that history in Europe has stopped. For them, the dialectic of history has been supplanted by the paralysis of history. The top Soviet leaders in Moscow and their counterparts in Eastern Europe assert that what transpired in the wartime meetings at Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam is a permanent fact. The manifestations of peaceful change in Europe are increasingly evident at two levels. First, in both halves of divided Europe, there is a growing political restlessness. Second, the leaders of the several superpowers are increasingly preoccupied with events outside of Europe. Since the 1960s, NATO has sought to deter a Soviet attack on Western Europe through the doctrine of flexible response.
